Preclinical course-evaluation methods at U.S. and Canadian medical schools

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Abstract
Despite the apparent prevalence of the use of course evaluations by medical schools, course and curriculum evaluation have gone relatively unnoticed in the medical education literature. In the fall of 1993, a 17-item questionnaire was mailed to all 141 U.S. and Canadian medical schools to elicit information concerning any course-evaluation systems in place in the schools' preclinical curricula. A total of 101 schools (72%) returned usable questionnaires. Of these, 79 reported having a centralized course-evaluation system and 56 used oversight committees consisting of administrators, faculty, and students. Beyond the use of written questionnaires (reported by 100 schools), course-evaluation practices varied widely. Eighteen schools reported that questionnaire content was the same across courses, while 56 used a common core of items with modifications for specific courses. The frequency and timing of questionnaire distribution varied from once at the final examination to weekly during the course. Summarized course-evaluation results were made available to departments (91 schools), the oversight committee (50 schools), the administration (47 schools), and students (13 schools). The feature most frequently cited as being a positive aspect of the course-evaluation process was student involvement (23 schools). Most frequently cited as areas of concern were low response rates to questionnaires (20 schools) and the need for simpler, more reliable methods of data collection (13 schools). Seventy schools reported specific types of changes that had resulted from course evaluation. The results confirm that course evaluation via student questionnaires is ubiquitous in North American medical schools. Most schools used centralized systems, but individual schools had developed their own combinations of technique and organization. This lack of uniformity may be due to the sensitivity of evaluation processes to local contexts, but it may also be due to the lack of literature on the subject.

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